


shades of blue

by cinderlily



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, next season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 14:10:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8893663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderlily/pseuds/cinderlily
Summary: Mike retraces his steps trying to figure out what the hell he did wrong. (Set next season)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the fact that I am frustrated at how it ended last season and if they don't #RenewPitch I'm going to lose it. 
> 
> Thanks and much love to Lucifern for the beta but all the issues are minnnne! <3

They’d gotten to the point in the fight where Mike wasn’t entirely sure how it had started or, to be perfectly honest, who the hell was right and who was wrong. Rather, he could focus on the way that Ginny was slowly losing herself, the shield going up and around her.

“I guess I can’t do anything right, can I?” she asked, her voice no longer the yelling of the last half hour, just defeated and tired. 

He knew, rationally, he should take a moment and step back but his adrenaline was so high he was just in it to win it. It was a thing his therapist before the divorce would repeat and repeat, ‘ _Mike, do you realize fights are a competition?_ ’ They were to him. 

“No, you can’t,” he said, voice ice cold. “And what else can I expect from someone who can’t even rent a fucking car?” 

And that was it. The kill switch. The button he knew to push. That she was too young. That she wasn’t _enough_. That she didn’t make the right decisions. Things enforced on her by too many people. She looked up at him and he wished the words were in a speech bubble so he could burst it. Erase it. Take each one of them back. 

She shifted from one foot to another. “Well then. I guess that’s that.” 

“Ginny,” he said, but it was to her back. She was already out of the hotel room they shared on the road, the door giving a deafening click in the wake of her silence. 

Technically the room was in his name, and there was another in her name somewhere else but what the MLB didn’t know couldn’t hurt them… Except when this was totally able to hurt _him_. In that she was out of their room and he had no idea where hers even was, if it was even on this floor. 

He sprang into action and made it to the door, yanking it open and looking down both ways. There were a few players in the hallway, but none of them seemed to be able to meet his eye and the elevator was just closed. 

_Fuck_.

“Guys,” he said, to anyone who would listen. “Guys, listen to me. Where did she go?” 

He didn’t know which deity to thank that Blip wasn’t in the hallway as he knew he would be totally shot down had he been there but instead Omar pushed himself off the wall and looked at his Captain with a frown. 

“What the hell did you do?” 

Mike gritted his teeth. “None of your business. Where did she go?” 

Omar cocked his head to the side, a little attitude showing. “I’m assuming her room. Or maybe Blip’s? Or the lobby? Who knows?” 

“I swear to G-D, Omar, I will put you on DA with my own TWO HANDS if you don’t just answer my freaking question,” Mike snapped. “Fuck it, I will start at the bottom and go to the top if this is needed.” 

Henderson stepped forward. “Ugh, Cap. Maybe you should curb the anger and probably put on some clothes before you do any actual searching.” 

Mike looked down and realized that he was in his boxers and a torn up shirt. Not that the guys hadn’t seen him in considerably less, but the rest of the hotel probably had no real desire to see him in his clothes. Not to mention it might draw a bit more attention than he actually needed. 

He pushed the door to his room back open, thankful for the foot he’d kept in it. He really did not need to be locked out, especially when he knew none of his teammates would call the front desk. He slid into a pair of jeans and put a Padres jacket on, even though he probably looked ridiculous in a jacket in Arizona in June but whatever. 

Just as he was about to walk out the door he noticed his phone flashing from where it was charging on his side of the bed. He lunged across the bed to it like he was trying to steal second, but it was a text. From Blip. 

“ _Just don’t._ ” 

The initial urge to chuck his phone at the wall aside, he grabbed for it and passed by texting him back, instead hitting send. Blip answered on the second ring. 

“Don’t go looking, Lawson.” 

“Is she with you?” he asked, ignoring the greeting. 

Blip made a tongue click. “You think I’d answer you if her ass was in this room? No. I’m not an idiot. You, my friend, are. But you’ll be less of one if you don’t go looking and give her some time to breathe. I’m coming by to grab her bag.” 

“What?” Mike rubbed at his forehead. “That’s insane. No. This is her room. Why would you need her bag? Fine, she needs time to think, I mean I’ll give her that. But it’s still 7:30… how much time does she need?” 

“Apparently? More than a few hours before bed. I don’t know what the hell you guys fought about but she’s not ready to come back up to your room. Now open the damn door.” 

Mike still had the phone to his ear when he answered the door and Blip stood there looking like he might actually have been sleeping or possibly just drowzing. He looked at Mike and put his hand out. 

“Bag.” 

Mike blocked his path for a minute. “Come on, Blip. We had a fight. Fights… happen. Right?” 

“Yeah, they do,” Blip said. “ _Bag_.” 

“Is she… what is she…” 

Blip sighed and put his hand down. “Look, I’m not your freaking couples’ counselor, man. I’ve got one of my own. She needs space. I’m her friend. Either point the bag out or give it to me so I can get back to doing anything other than this.” 

Mike gave in, dropping his guard and letting Blip into the room. He pointed to the black bag in the corner and clarified. “She’s got the yellow tag.” 

Neither of them had even really had time to go through their bags, but he did go to the corner and grab her charger and cell phone. He shoved it in her backpack and handed that off to Blip as well. Blip nodded. 

“Not for nothing, but you might want to think about what got you here, man.” 

Mike bit back the urge to remind him he’d said he wasn’t their counselor. 

*

_six hours before_

Mike picked up his phone and checked to see the time. The team plane left in a little over two and a half hours, a roadie that traveled the entire western division. He’d packed his bag early in the morning, putting his things in order like he liked them. Seventeen years in you get a rhythm down and the key was keeping things in a pattern. 

He’d sent Ginny a text to see if she wanted to grab lunch but she’d said she had some things to go over with Evelyn, which was fine. They weren’t attached at the hip or anything, but they’d not gotten a lot of alone time over the last few days and for whatever reason, it was beginning to bug him. 

Slipping his shoes on he thought he’d go for a drive to clear his mind and to get himself into a better place. He got into the bright red lease he had and slipped his sunglasses on. It was a nice place to just be. 

His house was in a stream of big plots of lands with houses on them, the kind where he didn’t know his neighbors and they didn’t know him, and he liked it just as much as the others, he assumed. He lived in the hills, where all he had to worry about was bobcats and the occasional wildfires. 

When he played his music loud no one seemed to complain, he liked that. He liked that freedom. Ten minutes in he’d all but forgotten Ginny avoiding him and was just cruising with the normal speed he liked. He had his bag in the trunk, the doors to his house locked up, hell, he could probably drive to Phoenix if he really wanted to. 

Exceeeeept then he’d have to drive to Colorado, Seattle and San Francisco so he figured he could opt out. 

The music stopped playing and Ginny’s name popped up on the screen. He hit send and waited just long enough to say. 

“So how’s Evelyn?” 

There was a pause before Ginny answered with a distracted, “She’s good. I’m going to meet you at the stadium. Blip will give me a ride, okay?” 

He furrowed his brow and thought of all the reasons that no, that wasn’t okay but instead forced a happy tone in his voice. “Sure… uh. Everything okay?” 

“Yeah, everything is fine. Just figure as long as I’m here, you know? I’ll be gone for over a week…” 

“Oh god forbid Baker, not a whole week without Evelyn, what will you do?” he teased but didn’t get any laugh in response. “Ginny?”

There was a noise on the line and then Ginny came back. “Yeah, I know. Attached at the hip… See you soon, okay?” 

He was about to say something back, preferably ‘I love you’ or even just a simple, ‘Yeah’, but his screen went blank before blaring REM at him. He put both hands on the steering wheel and gripped tightly, turning it and feeling annoyed. He let out a loud noise because, well, he could and he was aware that the whole thing was ridiculous in the long run, that it had just been a long week but he hated the feeling that he was missing something. 

Since Ginny had gotten back from her injury, a brutal six weeks into the season, she’d been putting herself further and further into the game. They’d only really started dating a few weeks into her recovery. He’d been doing maintenance on his left knee while she’d been doing work on her elbow and they’d started the slow dance anyone does on the way to dating. 

Coffee after, ice baths near each other, bitching about the devils that the Padres hired as PT staff. The shit with Rachel had fallen apart, again, like it always would, and Ginny was there. She was there to listen or to distract him. She had been the rock he needed and he’d been there to talk her through her first real injury. 

It hadn’t been what anyone would call the most epic romance, seeing as they were both nursing injuries, but by the time spring training had rolled around she’d had a drawer in his house and a key to the door. It had felt natural, like breathing. He liked that. 

No one had seemed that shocked when the season started that they were together, which in itself was a little annoying. He would have appreciated a heads up from his teammates had it meant a little longer dating her. Also, you know, the whole Rachel thing could have been avoided and maybe they’d be friends right now rather than tepid acquaintances. 

And the thing was, they were on _FIRE_. Not just the two of them on the field, reading each other like they had some sort of freaky secret language, but the rest of the team. They were second in the division, and only by the margin of a half a game, sometimes a full game, depending on the time of day and where LA was playing that day. It was crazy. 

Mike frowned at the road ahead of him, the urge to drive slowly ebbing out of his system. Maybe he needed to be distracted by one of his secret indulgences. Shopping. Yeah, he was a man, and yeah he was aware of the stupid gender biased crap surrounding it (even more aware now that Ginny went off on rants about Blip being backwards just because Marcus liked walking with her around the mall), but a good trip to Mission Valley and he was set for days. He loved it. 

He turned his car around, switched the music to something a little louder and drove the roads with a purpose. He still had a little over an hour and a half till he had to be at the building. It was the perfect amount of time. 

By some miracle he found himself in the middle of the mall twenty minutes later. For San Diego that was ridiculous, the traffic seemingly parting it ways down the center. He had his hat on, (the non-Padres one) and ear buds in, walking through the open air mall with a sense of purpose. 

Maybe he’d buy Ginny something, get her out of the funk she’d been in. He looked around for a sports shop but then realized she had a deal with Nike and that was like buying wine for someone who owned a vineyard. Besides, she’d ditched him, what the hell was the point in buying her crap? 

He kept walking and walking, stretching out his knees and getting a chance to feel like a normal person for once. His brain, however, kept wandering back to Ginny. He checked his watch. He didn’t have to leave for maybe fifteen minutes or so. He was going to do something reckless and stupid and buy her something sappy. 

When he walked into the jewelry shop he felt like a spotlight was on him. By the reaction of all the people working there, there was. He took off his hat, because he wasn’t _rude_ and walked around to look at things. She wasn’t the type for _bling_ necessarily but he had noticed she wore a few small pieces occasionally which meant that he wasn’t completely out of check buying her something. 

“Sir, may I help you,” asked a woman who looked like she was savoring after a piece of prey. He’d bought enough for girls (primarily Rachel) over the years to know that to her he was commission plain and simple so he figured he’d be forward and simple as he doubted he was buying anything that she imagined in her head. 

He tapped his fingers on the glass. “Uh, yeah. I’m looking for something… a necklace.” 

“Well, that’s vague,” she said, winking at him like they had some sort of inside joke. “Let’s narrow it. White or Yellow gold? Platinum? Rose gold is nice…” 

He blinked and thought back before a thought struck him. “Uh, gold? And I want a blue stone. Deep blue… sapphire.” 

“Nice choice. Pretty popular. Let me guess?” she smiled. “Padres fan?” 

A guy in a tailored suit behind the counter with him made a noise akin to a whine. “Lisa, let me take over here, okay?” 

“Yusef, I am quite fine,” she smiled tensely. 

“I’ve got this,” Yusef said, sternly and gently nudged her in the direction of a young couple who’d just walked in. After she was out of earshot he leaned in. “Sorry, Mr. Lawson.” 

Mike, inexplicably, blushed and shrugged. He’d been the jackass to pull the ‘do you know who I am’ card once or twice but he’d stopped doing that once he realized how pretentious it actually was. “No problems. Uh. But yeah. Padres blue would be preferable.” 

“Of course, sir.” 

He was lead to the back half of the store, a section with shiny gold and bright stones. He felt his nose wrinkle involuntarily. “This… might be a bit too shiny for the person I’m buying it for. She prefers… simple?” 

Yusef smiled at him and for a split second, he wondered if he already knew who this necklace was for. Probably, it wasn’t the world’s best-kept secret who he was dating. “I figured as much but I do have one necklace I think you should see.” 

He brought out a necklace that was smaller than most of the other ones, on a small simple chain. The pendant that hung from it was a large gold twist and in it were a blue and a white stone. 

“Blue sapphire, white topaz,” Yusef smiled. “The gold is in an infinite loop.” 

Mike picked it up and considered it. It wasn’t quite what he’d imagined walking in, though to be fair he’d had little idea when he’d walked in what he was looking for. But it was beautiful. The two stones set apart but not quite, blue and white and perfectly in the large infinite loop together. It felt right, honestly. He didn’t know why it felt right, but it did. 

“I’ll take it,” he said. “It’s perfect, thank you.” 

“Of course,” Yusef said, obviously pleased. He stated the price and Mike handed off his credit card, the knowledge that his accountant would probably not be entirely pleased but at least not nearly as displeased as he could have been. 

Once he finished signing, shook Yusef’s hand and thanked him profusely, he headed towards the door. Just as he got to the front the young couple, working with Lisa still, turned and looked. The girl yelped. 

“Holy shit, you’re Mike Lawson!” 

He smiled. “Yep, I am.” 

The guy put a hand on his girlfriend’s shoulder but she piped up. “Good luck on the roadie!” 

He walked out of the store with a lot off of his shoulders… and a shockingly low amount of time to get to the Park. He put the small box in his carry on bag, unsure of when or how he was going to give it to Ginny. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to make it a romantic gesture or a simple one but he figured it would work out in the end. 

* 

He got to the Park with maybe three minutes to spare. Just long enough to loud the two bigger bags on the under part of the bus and grab both he and Ginny’s carry-ons. When he got on the bus Ginny had saved the seat that he jokingly said their first date happened, the ride to LA. She looked tired but not especially so. 

“Hey Captain,” Blip called from a few rows back. “Aren’t you supposed to set an example?” 

He shrugged. “Well, I’m showing what not to do.” 

He knew that one was coming up in Kangaroo court. Though who knew when the next one would be. Things were still a tetch weird, even if over the last break he and Blip had hung out a considerable amount and talked things out. Blip and Evelyn were going through some stuff, though to be honest, it was a lot like parents fighting to him. 

He thunked down and looked over at Ginny with a grin. “Did you have a good time with Evelyn?” 

Ginny nodded, taking one of her earbuds out. “Your phone dead? I texted you a few times.” 

He frowned and grabbed at his pocket, then realized he’d turned his phone on Airplane mode so he could listen to music and brood. He turned it off and texts started. It explained a few things, he’d wondered how he got away with being so close to being late without Blip or Oscar texting him. 

“Airplane mode,” he said. “Shit, I got like twenty texts.” 

“You’d think you were the captain or something,” Ginny said a slightly smarmy smile on her face. 

He was going to say something back but she put the earbud back in. 

*

Ginny had been ornery the whole trip, which admittedly was not that long but felt like an eternity. He was tired before they hit the ground, annoyed by the fact that he was being in turns ignored or talked around and even more annoyed that Blip kept giving him a look that made him pretty sure it was _his_ fault. 

They made it through team dinner, an affair punctuated by two of the guys at the table next to them daring each other to mix their foods together into an unholy mess. The restaurant was excellent but even he would have passed on the jumbled up mess the two rookies thought was appropriate. The worst part was as their Captain he had to walk over and play dad. 

They were in public, they were adults, and this looked poorly on the Padres organization. No matter if the restaurant consisted of only them and what appeared to be a confused group of guys in the corner. 

He tipped well and they got back on the bus to the hotel with Ginny seated beside him but still not looking at him. He was frustrated and tired and expecting a lot different. Maybe, he figured, if he just let them rest on it he would have some sort of moment of clarity in the morning and the fight would be over like that, no more terse silence, no more looks from freaking Blip. 

When they got into the hotel room, though, he saw no such luck. It was just about 7 and he was dying for a hot bath and possibly a beer. Maybe two. The walking at the mall was good for him but his left knee had been acting up for the better part of the season and he had to play it safe if he didn’t want to fall in the middle. 

He was halfway through getting his clothes off when Ginny made a noise. He recognized the noise. Ginny had a habit of making it when she was mad, it was a cross between a sigh and an audible eye roll and damn it if it didn’t get under his skin most of the time.

“What?” he finally snapped. “What the hell is it?” 

Ginny looked at him, seeming to be weighing if this was worth it or not. She squared herself and frowned. “I think we need to talk about us.” 

“Talk about us?” he asked, slowly sounding out each syllable. “What do you mean ‘Talk about us’?” 

Cause those were ‘I’ve had a lovely time so long and thanks for all the fish’ type words and … yeah. They’d had a rough couple of days but it wasn’t like _break up_ level of bad days. They had just reached a fight. Fights happen. 

“You and me, what are we?” she asked and she seemed to not be able to find his face in the room, her eyes darting everywhere. 

“Gee, Baker, I don’t know,” he snapped, knee hurting and annoyed. “My mom said I wasn’t allowed to go steady till I could drive…” 

Ginny’s face went suddenly and strangely cold. So cold, in fact that he immediately backtracked. 

“Ginny, you stay at my house more often than not, your freaking townhouse co-op thinks you don’t exist,” he said, his tone softer than his words. “We drive separate cars to the Park but only because you go in Gd awful early and your choice in music is, I don’t know, _teenager_.” 

He forgot that he had the ability and habit to make jokes at the inappropriate times. She finally looked at him and it was as if she was being bent in half. “Is that what you think of me? Teenager?” 

“No,” he said, suddenly aware that he was stepping on very very very tender ground. “I said your music was 'teenager'.” 

“So, I stay at your house, the guys know. What does that make us? A thing? Hook up? Dating? I mean, what the hell are we, Lawson?” 

Mike stared at her, gobsmacked. “What do you mean? We’re dating, how is that even an assumption?” 

“You know, I might not have **a lot** of experience but I know a little bit. People who are dating, tell each other things,” Ginny said, and she was far away again, looking at him but not … _looking_. “And they don’t lie to each other, especially not about the big things.” 

“I don’t lie to you about _anything_ ,” he said, but of course that wasn’t exactly true. Everybody lies and he knew better than most that it was not entirely something that could be said as a definite. “I don’t lie, _much_.” 

Ginny pointed at him. “See that, Lawson? That isn’t what people do when they are dating.” 

“What? Be honest. I can’t tell you I don’t lie,” he said his hands going wild. “Because everybody lies. You lie! You told me you wouldn’t send money to your brother and I know you have.” 

She shrunk back. “I didn’t send _him_ money. But he had a creditor that was going to repossess his house.” 

“See,” Mike said. “You lie to me. But that’s what people do. People lie.” 

She started to fidget, the way she did when she was truly starting to feel anxious and it was all he could do not to just take her by the hand and talk her down from whatever she was building up in her head. Tears were at the corners of her eyes. 

“He’s family, I can’t not help if I have the ability. But I would never lie to you about things that actually make a difference. That could… would… I don’t know. End what we are. Whatever we are.” 

Mike bit at his cheek, hard. “I already TOLD you what we were, Ginny. We’re together. We’re dating. We’re living together. We even share a hotel room.” 

“This is your hotel room,” she said, weirdly soft. 

“No, this is OUR hotel room,” Mike pointed out, brain feeling fuzzy from the yelling. “Do you even know what floor you are supposedly on?” 

She sighed and wrapped her arms around herself. “I guess I can’t do anything right, can I?”

* 

_present_

He genuinely found himself at a standstill. There was nothing he could trace in that conversation, it all felt like one big mush of nothingness. He sat on the edge of his bed and traced and retraced his steps, the words. 

_Lie_. He kept going back to that. He couldn’t help but bring himself back to that. He went over the last few days over and over again but nothing seemed to pop up. He’d been _with_ Ginny about ninety percent of the time. The only time he’d really left her side was for dinner with Oscar and his agent. They’d been going over a discussion of where his next contract was going and how. 

Of course, his agent had been pushing the hell out of him getting the most he could and he wasn’t fighting him on it at all. But Oscar had to do his part too, rollback and push forward, it was typical bullshit. He’d _told_ her about it all. They’d been at an open freaking restaurant, people coming up to the table over and over again. A pretentious restaurant just like always. 

Hell, Dave Roberts AND Don Mattingly had been there having dinner together, which was weird. Who would have thought the last two managers of the Dodgers would want to be at dinner together? 

The Dodgers. The managers of the Dodgers. He had told her about that. He had to have, right? It was a stupid awkward moment, talking with the two managers of the Dodgers when he’d spent the bulk of his career fighting them. But the thing had been all of thirty-five seconds. A handshake, an awkward smile and Don Mattingly making a stupid requisite comment about him having chosen the wrong team. Because being drafted at 18 you have any freaking choice in the matter. 

But it was there. The idea, the moment. He hadn’t really thought anything of it, but it was the only anomaly in his generally boring life. 

He had only one choice, and he knew he was going to regret it. He picked up his iPad and went to Safari, opening it up and typing in his name and ‘Dodgers’. Instantly thousands of responses came up and, worse, a picture. He hadn’t seen it being taken but it was him shaking Dave Robert’s hand and his agent in the background. 

He hit the first link and a video started of Eric Byrnes doing a “Hot Take”. 

“Dinner with your agent is one thing, but glad-handing the enemy? We all know how close he got to going to Chi-town last year, are we looking at a reverse Kemp situation? I mean…” 

He turned it off. He wasn’t going to watch the rest of it, especially when it looked like he would spend the whole time feeling like an idiot. Had no one felt it necessary to contact him about this? He hated speculation but he could have cleared this shit up in one single five-second conversation. 

“ _Are you going to the Dodgers?_ ”  
“ **HELL NO**.” 

There. It would have been easy. He wasn’t sure why Ginny didn’t just ASK him, talk to him about it. So he wasn’t exactly forthcoming the last time but they hadn’t been DATING last time and even that night the first person he told first about everything had been her. He put his iPad on the side table and grabbed his phone instead. 

“ _I am not moving to the Dodgers, Gin._ ” 

Nothing, not that he expected her to respond to him in an instant. He began walking around his room for a good half hour, practicing everything he was going to say to her. He wondered if she had tried practicing what he was going to say to him. Had she been as anxious about it. She asked _what they were_ , fuck.

He checked his phone. Nothing. Not even a ‘message read’. He exhaled. He knew if he tried anyone from the team he was going to get stonewalled, it was pretty much just a definite, he hadn’t quite gotten his team back from his downfall last year and now, even worse, they saw him ‘shopping’ again even if it wasn’t true. 

To move forward he would have to bring out the big guns and he only really had one big gun that he could pull. He braced himself as he brought up the number, stared at the face in the corner and hit send. 

One ring in he got a response. “Oh hell no.” 

“Hey Evelyn,” he said, adding a hasty. “Don’t hang up.” 

“Why shouldn’t I? First Chicago and now the Dodgers? Are you just lining up a list of pain to inflict? Do you know what I’ve been dealing with for three days?” 

He rubbed at his eyebrows. “No, I don’t but I’m going to assume it wasn’t pretty. To be completely fair though, I was not talking to the Dodgers.” 

“I’ve got some pictures that say something different, **Lawson**.” 

“Look, I was at dinner negotiating prolonging my _PADRES_ contract and the two managers of the Dodgers were at the same restaurant, a restaurant I would NEVER pick in my freaking life. Now do I not shake their hands and seem like a dick or do I shake their hands and go back to _prolonging my stay with the Padres_.” 

Evelyn made a noise. “You shake hands but then you tell your girlfriend what happened. If she is your girlfriend.” 

“Of COURSE she is my freaking girlfriend, Evelyn,” he snapped. “We had dinners at your house!” 

“Well, tell _her_ that. She figured you were just going to move on and up. You never define things. You never use your words. You are so _frustrating_ Mike Lawson and I’m not the one dating you.” 

Mike let out a low laugh. “You know, you are by far not the first person who has told me that.” 

“This isn’t funny.” 

He rubbed at the beard. His stomach kept flipping, he was so exhausted and he was frustrated. “Yeah, I’m the one sitting in a hotel room by myself with half my team hating me and my girlfriend literally hiding from me. This is not exactly humor filled laughter, Evelyn.” 

“Three days, _Mike_ , and then you can come back to me,” she cracked. “But I’m not talking to you. So…” 

Mike felt like he might genuinely cry. “Evelyn, please. I can’t just do this for days. I bought her a necklace today? Does that… I mean. Boyfriends do that? Gifts?” 

“Necklace?” she seemed to drop a bit of the angry tone. “Go on.” 

He described the necklace and his thinking about it and by the end, he felt like he had shown his last card. She didn’t respond immediately and he was half afraid she had hung up and he’d missed it but then she let out a sigh. 

“You had to be less of a dick than I thought you were.” 

This time his laugh felt a little more genuine. “Well, I get the feeling the bar was set pretty low for me to step over.” 

“You have no idea,” Evelyn said. “Okay, I’ll call Blip. No guarantees. Also? Send me a picture of this necklace. I have to see it.” 

The phone went silent and he checked the screen, half hoping he’d have gotten a text during the call but no such luck. Ginny still hadn’t actually read the text in the first place. He flopped down and looked at the ceiling. He was tired, really tired, but he knew until he resolved this sleep would be near impossible, even with the painkillers he had in his bag. 

He let his mind wander through what he should say, his brain trying to formulate the perfect speech. He was good with speeches when he needed to be, probably one of the reasons he was made Captain. He blamed it on the fact that a lot of his youth he had to watch whatever movie was on one of the few channels they could get with rabbit ears and that meant a lot of cheesy old movies.

Time passed, slowly and painfully, and still his phone didn’t ring or ping for a text. He’d sent the damn picture, why the hell was this taking so long? Was he in some sort of painful time vortex? 

There was a knock at the door. He got up, much too quick for his knees pleasure and he let out a low grunt of pain but pushed on. He swung the door open to find Blip, looking still annoyed as fuck but less so. 

“My wife informs me you aren’t as much of a jackass as formerly noted.” 

Mike would snipe at him, possibly try and start a fight but he was the gatekeeper to getting Mike a chance to talk to Ginny so he was going to play nice. “Apparently all it took was jewelry?” 

“Seriously, how you were married for as long as you were…” Blip grumbled. “Okay. Here is the deal. I talked to Ginny. You can go to her. You can talk. But she reserves the right to not come back down here. I get this is a misunderstanding, but the fight was real. And she has been hurt in the past…” 

“BLIP,” Mike finally snapped, then forced himself to breathe in. “ _Please_.”

Blip glared but shrugged, looking much too tired for the time it was. “Four thirty four.” 

He let the door close when it was clear that Blip was done with this whole thing. Mike grabbed his bag and his carry on, the charger and his phone. Making sure to turn off all the lights. If he was going to do this, he was going to do this right. 

He did the walk of semi-shame, the few guys in the hallway dicking around watching him as he headed towards the elevator and hit the button. He heard a few whipping noises from behind him and ignored them, he also heard a few grumbles of being a fly on the wall but he wasn’t even the mood to deal with that. 

The doors opened and he walked in, pressing four and looking up until the doors completely closed. When it did he looked at the door, checking out his disheveled look. He would clean up again but it was useless. He wasn’t going there to impress her, he was going to pretty much beg. 

He walked out onto the fourth floor to find the hallways blessedly empty. He headed down, passing the doors and feeling like he was walking to his doom. It had been a mistake. It had been a mistake. He chanted it in his head over and over again. She had to listen to him, right?

When he got to the door he took a moment to inhale and exhale, practicing the mindfulness techniques that Rachel had taught him a few years before that he had made fun of. He only got one knock out before the door opened and Ginny answered, looking about as bad as he felt. 

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked and he almost paused to ask if Blip really had told her he was coming. “I said we could talk, what’s with the bags?” 

He looked at the bags and started to second guess himself but made himself step forward. “Can I come in?” 

She gave him a skeptical look but opened the door and put her hand out. He walked in and placed the bags gently on the inside of the room, not too far in but not in the hallway.

“I wouldn’t move to the Dodgers.” 

“You looked pretty cozy with their manager,” she said, putting her hands across her chest. 

He opened his mouth to explain the whole story, the awkwardness, the extension. He’d had a whole speech after all, but it evaporated looking at her. Instead, when he opened his mouth all that came out was. “I couldn’t go there because _you_ are a Padre.” 

“What?” she said, arms uncrossing. 

“I couldn’t move to LA, or Chicago, or hell, five miles north of San Diego, because you wouldn’t be there. And you are where I am supposed to be. I brought my bags because you don’t want to go back down to the other room. And I get that. I’m so sorry for what I said earlier, I didn’t know… Not that it matters. But I’m supposed to be where _you are_. So I couldn’t go to the Dodgers, Ginny. Cause you wouldn’t be there.” 

She blinked at him, tears welling up just a little. He grabbed inside his jean pocket and pulled out the box, opening it to show her the necklace. 

“Me and you, Baker. We’re in this together. Boyfriend and girlfriend, significant others, partners,” he said. “As long as you’ll have me.” 

It wasn’t a proposal, that could definitely wait. But it was more or less so. He was hers and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let her think otherwise. 

“You damn sap,” she said, hitting his chest and laughing. She wiped at her face. “Our colors?” 

“Forever,” he said it with every ounce of intention in his body. 

She looked him in the eyes and grabbed her hair up, turning around to indicate he should put it on her. He did with a smile, clasping it on and kissing where the clasp lay on her neck. She turned around and looked down at it. 

“You sure you know what you’re getting yourself into?” she asked. 

He leaned over and kissed her her first on her cheeks, still slightly wet with tears, and then on the lips before pulling back. “Yeah. I’m ready for it. You sure what you're getting yourself into?” 

She nuzzled into his chest. “Yeah. I’m glad you aren’t going to the Dodgers.” 

“You really thought I’d leave you for the DODGERS?” 

“I didn’t think you’d leave me for Chicago.” 

It was a fair point, though they hadn’t been together then. He pulled at her. “Not leaving you for anything.” 

She sighed. “Good.” 

“... Especially the Dodgers.” 

She laughed into his chest and he felt like he could breathe for the first time in a week.


End file.
